


This Thing of Darkness I Acknowledge Mine

by Killtheselights



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Inspired by Eros and Psyche (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Is sensory kink a thing?, It's Forcebond Smut, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn with Feelings, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Virgin Ben Solo, Virgin Rey (Star Wars), canonverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:46:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27609899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Killtheselights/pseuds/Killtheselights
Summary: He was here. He was not here. This line contradiction had begun to define them.Her chest felt tight. She didn’t want this now.When it felt like her heart might erupt from the strain, when she had to open her mouth or drown in her own panic, he broke the silence.“Rey.”His voice was tender and warm and almost verging on affectionate. It felt right.“No.”-------The Forcebond connects at night, and like Psyche welcoming her mysterious husband to bed, Rey lets the darkness mask the sins of the visitor she both loves and resents.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 22
Kudos: 137





	This Thing of Darkness I Acknowledge Mine

**Author's Note:**

> This oneshot was written for the most part on October 7th, 2019. Triple Force Friday, riding the frenetic energy of the hype wave for idk, some movie I never saw. This piece is a dragonfly in amber, where the series basically stopped after TLJ.
> 
> It's Forcebond porn. It's my favorite thing. 
> 
> It's got just a dose of the angst you might be familiar with if you've read anything else I've ever written on Ayy Oh Three, but this time it just resolves itself in smoot.
> 
> There might be sequels, who knows.

Well after she should have been asleep, she feels that familiar tug, the phantom needle pulling an invisible thread through the galaxy, and in the dark, she hears him breathing life into the silence.

He shouldn't be here. She doesn't want him now.

Doesn't want to face the emotions she had just been trying to untangle in her mind. It was the same knot, night after night, a spool of thoughts so hopelessly tangled it began to form a net around her until she was trapped within it.

And then he was there, and the feelings were a web that ensnared her.

She knew the pressure of the Force in her mind when he was near. He felt like a feral thing, a rage she couldn't explain, a heartbreak she knew too well.

She knew the darkness around her, and she didn’t fear it now.

She heard his breath, felt him near, but where, she could only vaguely feel.

He was here. He was not here. This line contradiction had begun to define them.

Her chest felt tight. She didn’t want this now.

She didn’t. She  _ didn’t. _ _  
_ _  
_ When it felt like her heart might erupt from the strain, when she had to open her mouth or drown in her own panic, he broke the silence.

“Rey.” His voice was tender and warm and almost verging on affectionate. It felt right. It was wrong.   
  
“No.” 

It came out as a rush. She wasn’t ready for this.

She had just been uncoiling him from around her mind, the ways he had looked at her when they were together, his eyes on her skin. It was real. It was all the Force. Ghosts of eyes on her flesh.

She couldn’t have him here. She squeezed her eyes shut as if it made a difference in the absolute darkness of the quarters.

He was in the darkness with her. She could feel him, hear him.   
  
“No?” His voice was amused, almost. It was almost sad.

“Stop,” she hissed. “Just stop it. You don’t have to do this.”   
  
She was met with silence. She continued. “You don’t have to pretend.”   
  
“Pretend what?”   
  
Kriff, if he would just  _ stop playing stupid _ ...

“You...don’t have to be here.” She said it firmly as if it might make it true. “We don't have to pretend to be  _ nice _ . We don’t have to see each other. Just because of the Force…”

“You hate me.”

This was neither amused nor sad. The deep, mournful voice was even. He was not surprised. He had anticipated this, prepared his response.

She sighed, her breath shaking. She felt the tension leave her. 

“No,” she whispered into the darkness. “We don’t have to pretend that either.”

“Okay.”

The lone word hung in the velvety blackness around her. She felt a heat licking along her shoulder.

Heat. He was close. Getting closer.

“You don’t hate me,” he stated after a moment. “Do you really want me gone?”

_ Yes, _ she thought. Yes, she wanted peace and silence and aloneness.

That was what she used to forget him, to try to purge her mind of him. She wanted to pretend to be safe from him and the complicated pains he brought.

But even if she did feel him beside her, his phantom form not even a weight on the bed with her, she knew he would still be haunting her, flooding her mind.

She wanted him gone because she thought it would be easier to forget him that way.

In the darkness, she could pretend she didn’t want him. That was her charade, one she performed before herself and the Force. If her performance became convincing enough, maybe the Force would believe her. Maybe she would believe it herself.

“No,” she said, the word gusting on a sigh. “I don’t want that, Ben.”

“Ben...” he repeated, almost curiously. She felt his heat drawing nearer still.

Then, she felt a gentle caress against her bare upper arm. 

His hands, violent hands that hurt and killed, were on her, delicate and cautious, and she didn’t feel the rage or sorrow she associated with Kylo Ren. She felt a serenity that she remembered. The way the galaxy had seemed to snap into place the first time they had touched.

There were no visions this time. Just touch and the tenderness left in its wake. 

She bristled, then relaxed.

“Do you want this?” he whispered. She found herself surprised by the gentleness of his tone. She had heard him scream and rail, but this was like a hum, a whisper, candid and heavy. 

She had known his vulnerability once, glimpsed it with a brush of fingertips on a rain-soaked hut, and a strange ache grew in her chest.

She had missed this strange softness, however rare it was.

Her pulse was racing and her throat was tight, but she managed a sound, scarcely a whisper.

“Yes.”

After a moment, the heat shifted again. He was closer now. She could feel it through the thin blanket, through her nightshirt, against her bare legs. He seemed to be cradling her at his side.

The caress against her arm stopped. She felt the back of a finger land beneath her jaw and travel down the side of her neck. She shuddered as it fell below her collarbone, right to the neckline of her shirt.

“This?” She felt the heat of his breath this time. She thought she could feel his lips by her jaw. She thought she might go mad.

It felt good, damn him. It wasn’t supposed to. She squeezed her eyes shut.

“Yes,” she panted, cursing herself.

“Are you in pain?” She hated when his voice was gentle. Observant. She liked it better when he yelled. She liked that she could hate him when he yelled. 

“What?”

His heat seemed to move further away, but his hands still made contact with her skin. “Your face. You look like you’re in pain.” 

She realized that although the dark had utterly shrouded her room, there was a chance (a very high one, she realized) that on the other side of this connection, there was light, and he could see her. Her eyes snapped open again, and she stared into the consuming darkness.

He was watching her. Now that she thought about it, she could almost feel his gaze on her. Another ghostly sensation. 

This wasn’t real, but she could feel the pulse beneath his still fingers on her collarbone.

This was real enough. As real as it would get for them.

“I’m not in pain,” she snapped, trying to gain control of her breath. Damn him, she’d forgotten to breathe.

“Then what is it?”

She couldn’t feel his breath on her any longer. His heat was shrinking. He was pulling away, and she was left wanting. 

She tentatively raised her hand. She expected to feel nothing, to grasp at the air where he should have been.

But she felt something brush against her fingers, and a chill ran through her.

Whether it was fabric or hair or skin, she couldn’t tell, but it was a form not hers, and yet shockingly familiar. So startlingly close to herself. She jerked her hand back.

“I don’t  _ want _ to like you.”

It was a heavy truth, sinking with silence in the air between her and where Ben might have been, had he been real.

But that truth, painful and brutal, was real. She hated him not for who he was, but for who he made her.   
  
It was not who she was supposed to be. She was a Jedi. She was the hero of the Resistance. And some days, that was enough. 

But the Rey who had known him, confided in him, went to Ben Solo with hope in her heart to turn him, would never forgive him. Would never forgive her the failure that lost him.  


The Rey who wanted to take his hand, run away from everything she had ever been, from Master Skywalker, from the First Order, from Jakku and Ahch-To and all of it, to burn down everything that defined her and just live the rest of her days in the safety and comfort of this strange man who knew her better than anyone…  _ that _ Rey, so reckless and emotional, scared her. 

Having been a scavenger, Rey was used to only protecting herself. Herself. Her things. Selfishness was survival. To be generous was risky.

She was being foolish. She was being kind.

When she joined the Resistance, again out of that foolish, damnable kindness that brought her to save BB-8 instead of selling the droid, she found herself suddenly no longer in want of the basics. No more haggling for portions and scrounging for water. Now she had a purpose, a destiny, and loyalty. A cause. Responsibilities to others.

And no sooner had she assumed that role than Kylo had appeared.

Ben.

Ruining everything again.

No, it wasn’t his fault.

He wasn’t causing betrayal. He wasn’t the reason she felt the need to lie to her new friends.

He wasn’t causing her guilt. Not entirely.

“I don’t want to  _ like  _ you,” she repeated. But still. She took a hand and placed it over his larger one, still resting along the line between skin and fabric. She pressed his hand against her because she was afraid that otherwise, he would fade into the darkness. 

“You don’t have to,” he responded quietly. 

There was no one else. In the whole galaxy, it was only the two of them remaining who knew the Force. Perhaps there were others, she’d thought. But the Force hadn’t connected her to any of  _ them. _

It was just her and Kylo. Ben. It was just her and Ben and the lies their connection made her tell her friends, made her betray her responsibilities to the Resistance.

She was a Jedi. She was a liar.

He was a monster. A creature lurking in the dark. She should have been afraid. She should have been angry, kicking and hitting and biting until he was gone. He’d tried to hurt her friends and kill everyone she now knew but she’d almost given it all up to go with him when he’d offered.

Almost. She almost said yes to him, and that haunted her.

He was hatred and malice and rage and all the things she tried to cast off herself as she lay awake, alone night after night.

But with him, she wasn’t alone, for a change. She had this strange, sacred power, and so did he. And with him, she had comfort and understanding, and she craved it as much as she hated that he had wedged the darkness between them. The darkness crowding in on her now.

“I hate that the Force is making us be together,” she murmured. “I hate being under its control. Feeling powerless.”

She tried to peer through the inky blackness to where his eyes would be, trying to meet the curious stare she knew would be lingering on her. She hoped she looked commanding, not as sorrowful and torn as she felt.

She was glad she couldn’t see his returning gaze, whatever it was.

She thought she felt his hand shift beneath hers, his broad palm and long fingers resting on her collar and the top of her breast, hot and soothing. She felt his heat shift above her. He was leaning over her now.

“You’re afraid of this. This connection,” he said, carefully translating and rephrasing her words. “You’re afraid it isn’t real.”

“I’m afraid I only want you because the Force is telling me what to do. The Force is dragging us together. I don’t want that.” 

She wasn’t sure where this sudden fire in her came from but she suspected it was long-burning. “I don’t want it to control me.”    
  
She took a deep breath and mustered her strength, knowing there was only so much authority she could throw behind her words while she was lying in bed wearing only her nightclothes.

“But you want me here,” he stated quietly, cutting through to the heart of the matter.

“I shouldn’t want you. You’re my enemy.”

“Is that what the Resistance tells you?”

She nodded. She felt him tug his hand from under hers, and her stomach dropped slightly at the thought of him disappearing from her so soon. In a moment, however, she felt his hand cupping her face.

“What do you feel, Rey?” he murmured, and  _ kriff, _ she hated how warm his voice could be. “No Force. No allegiances. It’s just me. Tell me what you want.”

She hesitated, the tenderness of his touch almost enough to make her cry out, weeping as she had when she realized she couldn’t go with him. Couldn’t go with Kylo Ren as he was. She couldn’t betray everything to be with him, even if he could betray everyone for her. The hand he offered her now caressing her cheek and Force, it took so much out of her to not melt into his touch.

But that touch was enough to drag the truth from her again.

“I want you. I want you to stay here.”

She swallowed back the rest of the words aching to pour forth from her traitorous lips.

_ I want you to touch me, keep touching me.  _

She wanted him to stoke that strange heat that she felt in her cheeks, that fire he stoked in her chest that burned down between her legs, the desires of her body she would never confess, not in the light of day and certainly not to this man. 

She almost felt the knots in her heart, the tangled, complicated feelings she held for the creature in the darkness, begin to slacken as the admission surfaced in her mind.

“I don’t want you to leave me alone again.”   
  
Her voice seemed to echo in her painfully utilitarian crew quarters, but the warmth hovering above her seemed to press in closer. She knew that Ben, wherever he was, was lying over her, his body propped up somewhere beside her, somewhere she couldn't feel.

“I will be here as long as I can,” he promised. “I hope it’s enough.”

“It might be.” She wasn’t giving him that ground. Not when she felt her breaths coming shorter again, shorter and hungrier and more desperate. She wanted to lie if it meant it would make her stop, give her back control of her senses.

But the truth felt good. Losing control felt  _ good _ , damn it all.

“I’ll make it enough,” he said. The hand cupping her chin slid up to her cheek, and she felt soft, warm lips press against her forehead. 

They slipped down to rest briefly against her temple. Her opposite cheek. Rey took a deep breath. She thought she was prepared for when his lips met hers.

She was wrong.

His lips were sweet and plush and made timid requests rather than demands. She jolted at first from the newness of the kiss, and then returned it with her own.

A kiss. It was a taste she couldn’t describe. It was skin and spit and warmth and life. There was something slightly metallic to the sensation.

It was Ben. Ben Solo, through and through.

A kiss.

Another.

Suddenly, she kissed like a woman hungering, and he met her fervor with a surprising passion of his own.

He was here and he was real, luxurious and tempting. His sent, metal and sweat and battle and some sort of astringent soap, seemed to engulf her, and she was all too eager to let it overtake her.

Her hands cupped his jaw before her fingers reached out and buried themselves in his hair, soft and thick and lush.

They would occasionally retreat for air, and there were seconds when his breath would mingle with hers and she had never known that sort of familiarity. Somehow, the Force seemed to let his kisses lay thick on her lips even though he wasn't really there. She felt him pull away, and she would have been sure he was gone had she not felt him brush against her legs. The bed did not shift with his weight, and Rey resisted the urge to paw at the air again to make sure he was there, commanding him to come back.

Still, he left a trace on her mouth. 

When his warmth returned, spreading all the way across her chest, she was startled at first, but grateful. She felt a hand slide up her arm and pin it above her head. Her breath caught in her throat.

She felt his fingers entwine with hers, and she had to smother a whimper.

_ Yes. _

“Tell me when to stop,” he commanded.

The unsaid words seemed to float around them, buoyed by the darkness:  _ otherwise, I won’t. _

Rey didn’t intend to halt him. 

His lips met hers again, and she sighed into him. She felt his knees pressing against either side of her hips. She had a tether to him, finally, something to capture the creature in the dark.

She squeezed his hand in hers. She had something to hold. Someone. 

Hers. For now, maybe, but scavengers thrive in these tiny glimpses of permanence.

She had Ben by the hand and mouth and something about the contact ripped down all the walls she’d built, ripped through the tangles of emotion she felt, and wove them into a simple edict.

_ Take _ .

And  _ yes, _ she wanted this. She knew it was a desire she’d suppressed. Duty and responsibility and loyalty to the cause had told her she could not want.

But his desire matched hers. She felt it, in her mind and in his kisses, exploring now, trailing down her neck.

The Supreme Leader wanted her.

And that gave her pause.

The words she had exchanged in the day’s briefing came back to her as he buried his mouth in the gap between her neck and shoulder. She wanted to gasp and cry out and let the sound be swallowed up by the velvet blackness, but then, of course, she remembered the tangible, unreal man above her.

The mask. That was all she could think of.

The hideous red and black mask of the Supreme Leader of the First Order.

Supreme Leader Kylo Ren. Trampling planets. Subjugating whole systems. Instilling fear wherever the First Order came to rest.

She’d seen the damage of his regime. She knew this cause she fought for wasn’t abstract.

There was a frayed thread in her thoughts, and it seemed to drive a wedge between them.

There weren’t enough kisses that could soothe the wounds of worlds destroyed. There weren’t enough gently whispered words that would erase the screams of terror and pain he had caused.

She withdrew her hand from his.

There wasn’t enough light in the room to scrub the horrid visage of his mask from her mind.

His lips no longer felt so soft against her skin. The trail of kisses from an unseen lover was now burning reminders of her transgression.

There were still monsters in the darkness.

She knew he could feel her stiffen. She felt the warmth of his torso pressed against hers vanish, leaving her colder than before.

She felt him rise above her, his knees still against her hips, his legs brushing against hers. Now she wasn’t afraid of him disappearing into the night. Now, she told herself it would be for the best, she should welcome it.

“Rey?”

And there was his soft voice again, and it took all her restraint not to sob at the tenderness. She didn’t know what expression he might have seen on her face. She did not wear her anguish beautifully.

She turned to face him, where she believed he would be, and reached her hands forward, hitting a wall. She felt the ridges of his taut abdominal muscles, the hard bumps of his ribs, the rough patch of scars marring his side.

Beneath her fingers was the topography of a man. A strange terrain of bone and tissue and strength and failure.

She wanted him still. And maybe she hated herself for it, but as she touched him, she felt him bend over her, and she sat up, feeling up over his chest, his shoulders, and along his neck.

There. There was the thick ridge of his scar. There, the sharp, angular cheekbones. His brow, his nose. His lips parted slightly. His eyes, closed reverently as she felt blindly at his face.

It was a face she knew, one her memories had painted portraits of in her dreams, both the beautiful and the broken.

It was not the haunting mask of a warlord. He was the darkness made man, the shadows writ in flesh, and she desired him.

This man was not who she was afraid of. This was not the monster she feared lurking in the dark. But this was still a beast that hurt, that took. Perhaps that made it worse. 

But in the dark, there was a man she cared for, too. One who understood the things that scared her most. One that embodied them. 

And she had him at the end of her fingers.

She pulled his mouth to hers and kissed the darkness.

He kissed her back, harder now. He embraced her, pulling her to his chest and welcoming her into the sweet heat of his skin. She felt him moaning against her lips.

_ Good. _

She liked the feeling of his arms around her back, of him holding her up, but she craved control. She wriggled out of his grip and pulled the nightshirt off over her head. 

She had never been this exposed to a man before, but the dark was making her bold. She tugged him close once more.

He moaned again, lower, wilder, unburdened. She liked this, perhaps too much. She pressed her breasts against his chest teasingly, feeling her heart racing in her throat. She liked how this felt, too.

She liked it even more when he began kissing, licking, and suckling her breasts. It was her turn for a feral sound, her gasp higher-pitched and more self-conscious than she would have liked. She realized now that he was using the cover of darkness to heighten her pleasure; his hands and mouth darted across her nipples, frenzied, working in motions that she could not see nor predict. Small as her breasts were, they sent a powerfully charged sensation through her that made her hips buck and her legs bend and kick of their own accord.

Her thigh brushed his, and she was surprised by the sensation (as, she could tell by his sudden tensing, was he). She felt for Ben’s torso again, and while he was distracted with her, she let her hands wander over his abdomen downward, down to his hips. She let her hands rest on his waistband—

He halted abruptly, and in a few swift, disorienting motions she found herself on her back again, her hands pinned above her head.

“Not yet,” was all Ben felt fit to offer, his sharp tone one of a man used to giving orders but his voice the gentle crooning of a lover.

Rey thought she would hate how it felt to be powerless in his presence again. But this darkness was not cruel. He kissed her lips again, giving her a chance to kiss him back. She did. 

Then he returned to work. 

He kissed her neck again, her collarbone, her breasts, and then released her hands so he could shift.

His weight over her disappeared, but she felt him brush against her legs. He coaxed her thighs apart, and fretfully but eagerly, she obliged. He settled in between them, announcing his new position by running his large, rough hands over her torso. Her breaths shuddered as they left her. She had known the pain that heat could bring. She didn’t know how exquisite it could feel until she faced Ben’s warmth.

A kiss on her belly almost made her jolt. 

“Easy,” Ben purred. “I’m just getting started.”

She closed her eyes and tried to melt into the gentleness of his kisses, the calming rhythm of his hands over her skin, but his kiss trailed lower, and her senses kept lighting up like blaster bolts, and it was hard for her to remain calm.

This was so much. She had only known her own touch before, her own hands were the only ones that had ever met her body in the darkness. This was different. It was strange and potent and she didn’t want it to stop.

His fingers snaked into her waistband, and her eyes snapped open. He kissed her vulva through her underwear, the last warning of what was to come. There was nothing to see as she was exposed to the darkness, but she felt her underwear slide slowly down her thighs. She fought her instinct to snap her knees back together, but she lay there, defiant.

He still sat, kneeling, she guessed, between her legs. But she felt nothing else for a long moment.

She propped herself up on her elbows. She looked where he would be.

"Ben?"

She felt his hand on her arm, tugging on her hand until it was clasped gently in his. He brought it to his face again. 

She felt his cheeks, tighter now, lined. His eyes, too, had crinkles at the corner. His lips were no longer open but drawn tight together.

She felt now beneath her fingertips something she had never seen: Ben Solo's smile.

He kissed her palm, still lingering over his mouth. 

She shifted, drawing her lower body away from him. She pulled her underwear over her knees in what she hoped was a graceful manner and discarded them into the blackness. She reached for his face and brought his mouth back down to her, brought his whole body to recline over hers. His heat returned to blanket her, and she felt her body respond to the contact.

She relaxed her hips and let her knees separate, inviting him to explore her. She moaned against his lips, suddenly slower, more methodical.

His fingers dragged over her sensitive pelvis, through her pubic curls, down between her legs. She gasped into his mouth.

He kissed her slowly one final time and lowered her carefully back down onto the bed. She shuddered, feeling his unseen hands dancing along her thighs and teasing her labia. Kisses peppered her skin when she least expected it, stealing lilting gasps and soul-deep moans from her. His fingers were thick and curious and his mouth was tricky and taunting. 

He dipped his fingers inside her and she tensed, arching her whole body around his hand.

She stopped thinking, then. Stopped trying to wrest control from the darkness and just let herself be cradled by it. Let her body succumb to the bliss that chased her. 

She closed her eyes, threw back her head, and cleared her mind.

His hands were strong, his touch was incredible. But it was tenuous. He explored her with a reverence that she could only assume came from inexperience. 

She did not mind. She squirmed and writhed freely as he alternated teasing her and building harried friction. She clutched for something to anchor herself, but she could barely reach the edges of her bed.

She swore and panted, her body heating from her exertion.

Ben's touch felt so good, but he was so far away.

Distracted, Rey reached out through the Force, calling to him, beckoning him to her. 

" _ Please _ ." Her moan was keening and desperate and she half-heartedly felt embarrassed, but as she felt him brush a hand over her abdomen again, she melted under his touch.

She didn't want to feel alone with him there. She reached a hand under his chin and brought his face to hers. He kissed her again and again, his hand pressed between them as he continued to set her nerves ablaze.

She came for him without hesitation, lights exploding behind her eyes as this tension of body and mind released in a crescendo of touch and sensation. It was different than when she did it herself, a different kind of pleasure as his fingers tore pleasure from her until she was dizzy with it, the hands she could not see, only feel. As she recovered, muscles twitching as they fell back under her power, he crooned proudly at her. She liked the kindness in his voice. 

"You..." she panted. "You, too."

He buried his face in the damp hair spilling around her shoulders. He nodded and kissed her neck. She felt him shuffling beside her, and then he sat upright. Again, he widened her legs, nudging her thighs apart to make room for him, and she almost felt him appreciating the view of her. She couldn't be sure what he saw, but she knew he was pleased.

He took her hand and pulled her up gently. When she was seated, he placed her hand on his hip, now bare.

Understanding dawned on her quickly.

"Take your time," he murmured, his tone reassuring. Just like a patient teacher, she thought. She could feel his face close to hers, his breath gusting against her cheek. 

She nodded, but remained frozen before him. She was afraid she might dig her nails into his hip if she stalled any longer.

Carefully, she lifted her other hand, and, feeling its weightiness in the vast darkness around her, she rested it against his torso. His body was warm with a thin layer of sweat as she reached up to feel the ridges and bumps of his sternum. Her heart was persistent in her chest, the beat strong enough to cause her whole body to pulse and shake as her palm came to rest over his own heart.

Slowly, she pressed her ear against his chest and closed her eyes.

The rhythm was frantic, anticipation beating in his chest like the wings of trapped moths. 

The man in the dark was nervous, fearful. But he was warm and sturdy and gentle, and she felt at peace leaning against him, hearing the hollow echo of life coursing through him, forgetting how far away he really was.

She felt a broad hand snake around the back of her head and snare its fingers in her hair. He began to rub soothing circles at the base of her skull. His heart calmed. 

She slid her hand over his hips toward the thick heat she knew was situated between them. She'd never touched a man. Never wanted to. But now she did. Oh, she did.

She gently brushed the strange newness, hearing the growl, low and deep within him, erupt at her touch. The skin was different, soft and oddly smooth, and with a jolt of courage, she took him in her hand. 

She knew by the return of the fluttering and racing in his heart he was enthralled by her touch, though the rhythm of it changed; it no longer felt like nervous moth wings, but rather birds, elated and free.

She crept her hand up to his chest, his neck, over his cheeks. She read his expression beneath her fingers, felt the skin of his face stretched tight, his eyes squeezing shut, his mouth agape, a breathless, desperate gasp escaping him.

She chuckled despite herself. She had this power over the darkness. She was enjoying it.

She felt his hand cover hers, and he guided her in a repetitive rhythm, long strokes along the length of him, feeling his pulse again beneath her touch.    
  
“Like this,” he whispered. He released a strangled grunt. “ _ Yes.” _

She felt him tighten his fingers through her scalp, and he tilted her mouth to his. 

She kept pace on his cock. She felt the urgency between them as his lips became more frenzied. 

He broke the kiss with a snarl. She knew. 

She fell back against the mattress. She was more out of breath than she realized, and she felt her flushed chest heaving.

“Ben,” she whispered into the dark. 

She was met with his heat rising over her, phantom hands pushing at her thighs, fingertips wandering her, and a final kiss.

His hands returned between her legs, teasing her clit until the wetness returned and she cried out in delight. Fingers entered her momentarily, pulsing, readying her. Once she relaxed under his touch, he withdrew. 

She felt his chest brush against hers, and then with a stab of pain, she felt him slide into her. 

She scrambled in the darkness for something to hold, and his warm arms wrapped around her, drawing her close into his all-consuming heat and whispering words of encouragement while peppering kisses against her temple. She grasped his shoulders and exhaled, breathing out her apprehensions.

After a moment of settling, he rocked between her thighs, pushing deeper. She tensed briefly, then his comfort washed over her, and she felt safe. At rest. With a sigh of ecstasy, she relaxed against him and let her knees drop further away from his sides.

He pulled back with a pleased grunt and slowly pulsed into her again. Fearful as she had been, she trusted in this man of shadows completely. He drew out and in, a comfortable rhythm. She found, to her great relief, she was enjoying the friction building between them.

“ _ Ben, _ ” she cried into the dark.

The darkness replied with a kiss that began on her lips and ended on her neck. 

She felt her knees hoisted up against his hips, and she began to rock against him. Still, she grabbed at her invisible lover, anchoring herself to him wherever she could grip as she struggled to understand the pressure and pleasure and heat, an unbelievable heat, that grew with every movement.

She shot her hands out, feeling the muscles of his back moving underneath her palms. Boldly, she felt in the dark for his buttocks, a soft mass of flesh and muscle that pulsed and tensed beneath her touch. Feeling him, she felt control. She liked it. She could tell from his moans he did, too. 

She suddenly felt him pull back from her again, and she whimpered. Before he could return to her, her limbs were tugged this way and that. She was pulled upward and shoved and dragged, her hands and knees prodded and nudged until she realized she was on her knees, his heat beneath her.

A hand reached between her legs and she inhaled sharply as fingers began to play with her clit. She bit back the whine of pleasure threatening to tear out of her throat.

He coaxed her to sit lower, and she felt him ease himself back into her, his hand guiding him. He rocked his hips beneath her, his cock filling her with a heat that spread through her chest and neck up to her cheeks. She had been hot before. She’d known the heat of the desert sun. But this was a new heat. This came from within her.

She would let it consume her, burn her alive. It felt too good.

“Try it,” he whispered, words heavy and oozing with want. “Play with me.” She felt his thumb drumming on her thigh idly as she rolled her hips, this way and that, feeling him sturdy and hard beneath her, inside her.

He did not coax or scold, but merely let his sounds of pleasure guide her. 

His hand, however, continued to coax strangled expressions of delight from her as they began to move together. He was greedy now, touching whatever he could, and she was lost in the heat of their bodies and the contentment of the Force around them.

She felt his mouth, too, hungry and selfish, begin to consume her, suckling her breasts and neck until the hunger overtook his senses and his kisses became hard and desperate. 

The air left her as his teeth bit down at the base of her neck, and she clutched again at the blackness to anchor herself. 

Her hands found his hair, damp against her chest. His face was still buried in her skin, now leaving apologetic kisses. 

She stole his face and brought it to hers.

She missed his lips, but he helped correct her.

They tumbled again, and it felt like jumping into a strange pool of water with a fathomless bottom as he wrested her this way and that. Now, she was on her back again, her legs up in the air, her thighs flush against his chest.

Now, he panted her name.

“I’m close,” he said.  


Though she knew what he meant, the practicalities of when he was requesting of her were foreign to her, and she did not know how to ask him what exactly he was proposing with this information.

“What are you going to do?”

“We’ll be safe. I won’t finish in you,” he promised, then after a breath: “You’re good, Rey. You’re so good.”

These were not the words of the mighty Supreme Leader. These words of adoration, raw and honest, were not a monster in the darkness.

The creature in the shadows was eager to please and be pleased, to want and fulfill. 

She knew in the blackness where his cheek was. Her thumb landed gently on his scar, and she traced it down his neck. 

She felt him swallow apprehensively, and she pulled him down for a kiss, deep and tender. She savored the taste of him, now filling her mouth and blanketing her senses.

She fell back against the pillows, feeling her thighs press against her stomach, and she wiggled her hips just a bit. He snarled.

“Yes, Ben,” she said, a slight challenge in the sharpness of her words. “Now be good for me.”

Something inside her seemed to snap as he pushed against her at a furious pace. The friction between them awakened nerves she hadn’t known could feel anything, much less feel this kind of bliss, and she laughed, a manic and satisfied giggle that was very much unlike her. But his heat was overwhelming now, and he pressed against her in a way she’d never known how to ask for.

She saw nothing and felt everything, her hands clutching at his waist to try to retain control of herself if nothing else. She felt her body detach from itself once again, and another pulse of pleasure erupted from within her. He could draw this bliss out of her so easily...

He withdrew from her, letting her legs fall, and took her hand, pressing his cock into it. 

“Please,” he panted. “Finish me.”

She complied, trying to mimic the pace their bodies had devised. She tugged him down, kissing him roughly, her teeth snagging his lips as her hand worked him furiously until she heard him unleash a wicked groan, pulling away from her.

Sh e feared for a moment that he was gone as she tried to catch her breath, but she heard a final grunt from somewhere in the darkness. He wasn’t far, but she did not like the distance.

She sat up, suddenly uncomfortable with being alone.  


“Ben?”

Arms embraced her, pressing her against his heaving chest.

_ Here _ , he seemed to say.  _ I'm right here. _

Again, she turned her head so she could listen to his wild heart. The beat steadied as it slowed, resting.

“I’m here,” he murmured, and she had never been more relieved to hear anything.

She let him hold her, and they sat silently, panting lightly until they both regained something like composure.

"Does this change how you feel?" he murmured, lips brushing against her hair. She couldn't tell if he was asking her to taunt her or out of a futile hope that this strange passion might fix all that had broken between them.  


The touch felt different now. The tenderness was both wonderful and foreign to her. It was right. It was perfect. But it was intimacy she shouldn't have had. 

This wasn’t about control, not entirely; she never felt as if this Force connection was taking her control away. It was giving her something she wanted, something she couldn’t have in the light of day.

With Ben, here in the darkness, she didn't have to be anyone else. She didn’t have to be anything. She had to let herself love and get love in return, but she never had to act for Ben; he had shown her that, time and again. There was no role to play, no one or nothing else to be. No Jedis or heroes.

This was enough.

"I hope I don't see you again in the light," she whispered finally.

"Why not?" She almost thought she felt his grip on her tighten as he spoke, desperation creating an unfamiliar tension in his stance.

"I might not like who I see when I look at you again."

Her hand wrapped around his bicep. She felt his erection softening between them. She knew his body now, but it was still mysterious to her. So much she hadn't seen.

Perhaps it was better. She might not have been able to bear a look, knowing the man beneath the mask, the sweet skin and searing sweat and a smile written onto her fingertips, was forcibly hidden away. Would he be let into the light again, the Ben she now knew?

The Force felt heavy, burdened with his remorse.

"Do you like me only in the dark?"

She thought for a moment, letting his heart thrum with despair.

She pulled back, bring her hands to his face one more. There was no smile there anymore. His lips no longer were pulled back in a grin but were damp and swollen with kisses and laden with sorrow. She felt the damp skin of his cheek and prayed to the thoughtless Force that it was only sweat she felt; she could not live with the alternative.

She knew this man, though she hadn’t seen him. This lover of hers, strange and beautiful, was invisible to her. In the dark, this was not Kylo Ren; this man knew vulnerability, regret, pleasure, joy. He knew her. She trusted him. She wanted him without compulsion, without fear.

She felt him growing insubstantial beneath her touch, the solidness of him giving way to mist. They had stolen this time, made something out of thin air, and though she hadn’t wanted it, she couldn't bear to feel him vanish.

But she would not cry for him. She would not beg. She had no control over the Force that brought him here, that had brought them together under this blanket of night, but she would wait until he was gone to break.

She wanted to see him again, the unseen stranger. She wanted to feel the steady beat of his heart beneath her ear, feel the heady warmth they had shared, feel the pulse of him deep within her, awakening pleasure she hadn't known. The safety she felt when their bodies met. The confidence of their embrace.

She wanted all of these things yet would give none of them voice, lest the spell break. She would whisper his name into her pillow when he was gone. She would welcome him back eagerly, should he come back to her. But he could not know these things. She could not let herself admit to them.

But the dark, she knew, would keep her secrets.

As he passed like gossamer between her fingers, the threads between them becoming unbound, she whispered a confession to the stranger in the night.

"The man in the dark I might learn to love.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you guessed offhandedly that title was another Shakespeare quote, you're right, I'm predictable garbage.


End file.
